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Lot Essay
Masaaki Yamada: Between System And Spontaneity
Born in 1929, Yamada entered the Draftsman Training School at the Army Weaponry Administrative Headquarters in Tokyo in 1943. Later in 1944, he began study mechanical engineering at the Tokyo Metropolitan Mechanical Technical School in Koganei-cho. During the war in 1945, his home is destroyed by fire in an air raid. After the war, he stopped working at the Army Weaponry Administrative Headquarters started to participate in Japan Independent exhibition and prefaced his career as an artist. Active in Japanese art scene from 1950s to 1990s, Yamada's career began from still life painting and transited into abstract painting from 1956, and named by the artist as "Work B" (paintings from 1956-1959).
Work B began at the point where subjects in his still life painting are completely dismantled. In Work B. 180 (Lot 514), from the arabesque patterns resembling a whirlpool, a rectangle gradually emerges, and eventually, paintings featuring only a simple rectangular shape appear. Different from former Bauhaus School teacher Josef Albers's concentric squares with different values of orange laid down with near-mechanical exactitude which encourages reflection on the illustration of depth and space created merely by light against dark (fig. 1), Work B. 180 presents the existence of colour between red, blue, orange and green in concentric rectangles outlined by deep blue stripes. Colour is perceived by Yamada as an underlying force in his painting, as he once said, 'For a painter, colour is like a first memory." 1
Planar Composition
From 1960, the concentric rectangles are reduced to linear form in "Work C" (paintings from 1960-1969). From this point, Yamada is often called painter of stripes. "One thing we can say is that Yamada's stripes were not just series of bands of colour lined up on a single plane, but were overlaid atop one another, the many layers creating a sense of depth." 2 With painterly brushstrokes, drips, unevenness and irregularities are in evidence, Work C. 0 (Lot 513), the superimposed paint layers give rise to a complex and subtle visual experience. Yamada's 'stripe painting' combines both systematic (repetitive horizontal composition) and spontaneity (colouring) which is an alternative approach between Abstract Expressionism and Hard-edge.
Rediscovery of Japanese Graphic Tradition
Within the history of art, Japan's tradition of graphic art is unrivalled. This visual language is rooted in Ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock printing; its distinctive aesthetic is evidenced by its great impact on European Modern Art and the popularity of Japonisme in the 19th century. The skill and production of woodblock printing during that period plays important role in shaping the visual characteristics of Ukiyo-e— graphics, colour and flat printed surfaces (fig. 1)—which represent a complete departure from the qualities of oil painting at that time.
The meaning of graphics and colour is never fixed, allowing artists from different eras to interpret both according to their own need of expression. From the mid-1960s to 1970s in Japan, a new artistic expression was provoked, providing a new path that diverged from abstract expressionism which was popular at the time. Artists like Moriyuki Kuwabara (B. 1942), Shu Takahashi (B. 1930) and Masaaki Yamada (B. 1930) rediscovered Japanese graphic tradition from a contemporary perspectives.
1 Visitor's guide, endless: The paintings of Yamada Masaaki, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, 2017).
2 Same as above.
Born in 1929, Yamada entered the Draftsman Training School at the Army Weaponry Administrative Headquarters in Tokyo in 1943. Later in 1944, he began study mechanical engineering at the Tokyo Metropolitan Mechanical Technical School in Koganei-cho. During the war in 1945, his home is destroyed by fire in an air raid. After the war, he stopped working at the Army Weaponry Administrative Headquarters started to participate in Japan Independent exhibition and prefaced his career as an artist. Active in Japanese art scene from 1950s to 1990s, Yamada's career began from still life painting and transited into abstract painting from 1956, and named by the artist as "Work B" (paintings from 1956-1959).
Work B began at the point where subjects in his still life painting are completely dismantled. In Work B. 180 (Lot 514), from the arabesque patterns resembling a whirlpool, a rectangle gradually emerges, and eventually, paintings featuring only a simple rectangular shape appear. Different from former Bauhaus School teacher Josef Albers's concentric squares with different values of orange laid down with near-mechanical exactitude which encourages reflection on the illustration of depth and space created merely by light against dark (fig. 1), Work B. 180 presents the existence of colour between red, blue, orange and green in concentric rectangles outlined by deep blue stripes. Colour is perceived by Yamada as an underlying force in his painting, as he once said, 'For a painter, colour is like a first memory." 1
Planar Composition
From 1960, the concentric rectangles are reduced to linear form in "Work C" (paintings from 1960-1969). From this point, Yamada is often called painter of stripes. "One thing we can say is that Yamada's stripes were not just series of bands of colour lined up on a single plane, but were overlaid atop one another, the many layers creating a sense of depth." 2 With painterly brushstrokes, drips, unevenness and irregularities are in evidence, Work C. 0 (Lot 513), the superimposed paint layers give rise to a complex and subtle visual experience. Yamada's 'stripe painting' combines both systematic (repetitive horizontal composition) and spontaneity (colouring) which is an alternative approach between Abstract Expressionism and Hard-edge.
Rediscovery of Japanese Graphic Tradition
Within the history of art, Japan's tradition of graphic art is unrivalled. This visual language is rooted in Ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock printing; its distinctive aesthetic is evidenced by its great impact on European Modern Art and the popularity of Japonisme in the 19th century. The skill and production of woodblock printing during that period plays important role in shaping the visual characteristics of Ukiyo-e— graphics, colour and flat printed surfaces (fig. 1)—which represent a complete departure from the qualities of oil painting at that time.
The meaning of graphics and colour is never fixed, allowing artists from different eras to interpret both according to their own need of expression. From the mid-1960s to 1970s in Japan, a new artistic expression was provoked, providing a new path that diverged from abstract expressionism which was popular at the time. Artists like Moriyuki Kuwabara (B. 1942), Shu Takahashi (B. 1930) and Masaaki Yamada (B. 1930) rediscovered Japanese graphic tradition from a contemporary perspectives.
1 Visitor's guide, endless: The paintings of Yamada Masaaki, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, 2017).
2 Same as above.